


mirrors start to whisper

by devilsalwayscry, NightTimeRush



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Bittersweet, Bittersweet Ending, Blood, Character Death, Eventual Romance, Ghost Hunters Sparda Family Edition, Ghost Sex, Ghosts, M/M, Paranormal, Paranormal Romance, Technically Selfcest, Vergil is a Ghost, but they come back as a ghost, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2020-10-04 19:57:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20476667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilsalwayscry/pseuds/devilsalwayscry, https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightTimeRush/pseuds/NightTimeRush
Summary: V’s always known there was something different about his circumstances: between the inherent psychic powers his entire family possesses and the strange, too realistic dreams he’s had his whole life, he’s far from normal. When he moves out of his brother’s shop for the first time and wakes up to find a ghost reliving his death on his living room floor, he learns his past is a lot more complicated than he could've ever expected.(For VerV Week prompts "AU, Supernatural/Paranormal, Family, and NSFW." Mostly V POV. A paranormal romance story. Vergil is a ghost, V is a medium, everyone has a bit of a bad time, but there's some fluff and family drama and weird ghostly shenanigans in between.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> IT'S VERV WEEK BABEEEYYYYYYYY. This AU ran away from us like a month ago and now here we are, finally posting the first few chapters. This bad boy is absolutely going past VerV week but that's okay, it just means there's more VerV for everyone.
> 
> Tags are going to be updated as needed, and each chapter will have CWs in the starting notes if there's something we need to call out. This fic gets a little dark in places and deals with death kind of a lot (such is the nature of a ghost love story), so advanced warning there. It's been tagged for major character death because, well, a character does die right at the start. They come back as a ghost and then feature prominently throughout the fic, but this does have a bittersweet ending, so it's a bit of a weird situation all around. If you're worried about the character death warning and want clarification for this fic's planned trajectory before you dive in, please don't hesitate to hit me (Des) up on Twitter: [here.](https://twitter.com/desalwayscries) It's a little complicated but I am more than happy to explain to help anyone avoid triggering content. <3
> 
> We hope you enjoy! <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for this chapter: Death/dying, major character death (before they come back as a ghost), grief, POV from the character who is dying (for part).
> 
> You’re safe to skip this prologue if any of these things are triggering for you, it’s not SUPER critical to the plot. Death/dying and grief won’t be a major focus of the fic after this initial setup (though it will come up, given the nature of the AU, and I will tag accordingly!). Check the end of this chapter if you want a quick recap of the backstory this sets up should you decide to skip this part. <3

Vergil is dying.

It's not what he expects it to be. He supposes that's why he has a job, after all—dying is rarely what you expect it to be. It catches people off guard, sneaks up on them: a car accident, a previously undiscovered food allergy, a genetic disorder that went undiagnosed.

A knife to the gut (and back, and right cheek, and left arm).

The thing that stands out to him the most is how slow it is, which is more a result of the manner in which he's going to go: from blood loss and internal bleeding, on the rune-etched floor of an abandoned warehouse thirty-five minutes south of Red Grave City, situated atop what is likely a ley line. Somehow he has been able to drag himself to the center of the room, a good four feet from where he first fell, but now his limbs have gone cold and heavy and unresponsive, and he lies in a pool of sticky and cooling blood, staring at the ceiling.

He has been outplayed. Using Arkham for his research on the subject had been a bigger mistake than he could've ever anticipated. To be fair, he hadn't expected their history professor to murder him, but it seems the man is more deranged than he thought.

Dante will be furious with him. The thought is absurd, because, in reality, it will not matter how angry his brother is. He won't be there to see it.

Panic hits him, then, panic and dread and fear as the realization of what is happening settles over him. He is helpless and alone. He's _dying._ He surges up in an effort to sit, but can't, and he falls back against the floor and claws at the wood, bloody fingers streaking through the runes carved into the concrete beneath his hands. They tingle beneath his fingertips, like static on his skin, but he can’t focus on it with how scattered and fuzzy his thoughts feel.

_No! I refuse to die here like this. I **refuse**,_ he thinks, tries to say to the world at large, but the words won't come out—his tongue feels too thick, like his mouth has been stuffed with cotton, throat dry and aching.

"Vergil...?"

_No, go away, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm—_

If he could crawl away he would, but he can't move, not with how heavy and numb his body has become, and so when Dante finds the room where Vergil lies, he sees him immediately.

The last thing Vergil hears in this life is his brother's scream.

* * *

It's almost one in the morning before Dante finally escapes the flurry of police officers and paramedics to make it back to their shop, tired, bloodstained, and completely and utterly alone. He finds himself going through the normal motions of closing down for the day—he'd run out in such a hurry when Enzo had told him that Vergil was with Arkham, he hadn't taken the time to—

Not that it matters. He hadn't gotten there fast enough, anyway.

He should shower. Eat something, maybe, even though the thought makes him feel like he's going to throw up. There's probably some leftovers in the fridge. Didn't Vergil make pasta—

He opts for the shower, because Vergil's blood is everywhere, and it suddenly and abruptly becomes too much. He strips, then cranks the water as hot as it can go. Sits on the floor of the shower, because standing is too much, and sobs until he can't any more and the water has gone cold.

Why did his brother refuse to listen to him? They _knew_ that shit was bad news, that ancient artifacts and magic promising things like “eternal life” always led to problems. He’d demanded that Vergil let the job go.

But he couldn’t let anything go, could he? Stubborn and prideful and now, now he’s—

The only comfort in the entire goddamn thing is that they've already caught the bastard who ki—who did it. Arkham. Their fucking _professor_. Dante buries his face in his hands and breathes in a shaky, wet gasp of humid air. 

What is he supposed to do now? What do people do in this situation? He would think that working in a profession focused so intrinsically on death would prepare him for this, yet he feels lost, unmoored by the absence of his brother. Although they have only been together for the past year, it had felt like things were beginning to come together—they’d inherited the shop, they were starting college, they had steady work.

Now all of that seems insignificant, a future erased in the span of one night.

He snaps off the shower, wraps himself in a towel, and goes to Vergil's room. The bed is neatly made, sheets tucked in around the edges, comforter straightened smooth and flat. Precise. Perfect. Dante crawls between the covers in only his towel, skin still damp from the shower, and he burrows amongst Vergil's pillows and breathes in the smell of his brother's cologne. 

Eventually Dante sleeps. He doesn't know how, doesn't remember falling asleep, but he's woken by a loud thud on the front door down the stairs—once, then twice, a steady beat so loud it seems to vibrate through the entire building. He considers ignoring it; it's probably the cops and he's done talking to police officers. There's nothing they can do for him, anyway.

The thud on the door repeats itself—once, then twice—and Dante jolts from the light doze he'd let himself slip back in to. He glances at the clock—somehow, he's managed to sleep through most of the next day, and the vibrant green numbers on the alarm tell him it's a little after 8:30 in the evening. If it's that late, whoever it is must have something important, right? They wouldn't just show up at his house to repeat the same ten questions three hundred more times, would they?

He climbs out of the bed and realizes with horror that he's in Vergil's room, grief clawing at his throat and chest. He makes it to his own room without breaking down—a small miracle—and tugs on a pair of his sweatpants. Downstairs, that same heavy beat pounds against the door—thud, thud—and he shouts "I'm coming!" as he hops down the stairs two at a time. 

When he opens the front door of the shop, he's confused, because he finds himself staring at open air and the corner store across the street. After a heartbeat, however, he glances down, only to find—

"What?"

There is a child standing on his doorstep. He's small—maybe two or three? Dante's never been around kids much, he's not really sure—and swathed in a ratty brown blanket. His hair is a tangled mess of white so bright it shines in the streetlamps, exactly like Dante's own. He looks up at him through pale eyes and the moment Dante catches his gaze, there’s a spark at the back of Dante’s mind, a bright flare he’s come to associate with his other half, and he knows.

"Oh my god."

He drops to his knees on the doorstep and places his hands on the boy's shoulders, scanning his tear-stained and dirty face, before he pulls him against his chest. With a muffled noise like a sob he hugs him close, smoothing a hand over his hair, and the boy shivers and shakes and clings to Dante's shirt with small hands.

"Hey, it's okay. It's okay," he whispers as he gathers him up into his arms. "I've got you now—” _what should he call him? Does he have a name? It doesn’t seem right to call him_— “V, I've got you." He stands on shaky legs, clutching the boy tight to his chest. How did this small child make such a loud noise against the front door? He looks up and down the street, seeking answers, someone who might’ve helped him get here, but he finds no one. The place is unusually empty, even for the out of the way side road they run their shop out of.

Dante walks back into the shop and locks the door, clumsy and one handed. The boy—V, he guesses, for lack of anything better to call him—shivers and whimpers and clings to his neck, face pressed beneath his chin. This doesn’t make any sense. He knows without any doubt that this child is in some small way his brother. He can see it—a dull blue aura, dimmed and too faint for a normal human, shines around the kid in Dante’s mind's eye. It’s identical to his brother’s in every way except for how faint it is, which is a mystery he will have to solve later, because the child begins to quietly cry against Dante’s neck. 

“Shh, shh, it’s okay, I’m here now,” he says as he rubs V’s back soothingly. He doesn’t know what to do with children. He’s never been around them much and he’s only nineteen—raising a kid was the last thing on his mind. His thoughts are a confusing whirlwind of emotion, grief and shock and exhaustion spiraling into one, and he holds V and strokes his back and tries to figure out what the hell is even happening.

Vergil died on a leyline, atop runes Dante couldn’t read, amidst what was, according to Arkham, a spell for eternal life. He’d tried to read the markings etched into the concrete while he sat there holding his brother’s body waiting for the police to arrive, but that was never his area of expertise. The repercussions of the circumstances of Vergil’s death are unknown to him. He had expected a haunting, perhaps—had, to be honest, been hoping for it, as cruel and selfish as that may be. 

But this. He doesn’t know what this is.

V begins to cry in earnest, an ear-splitting wail against Dante’s neck, and he pushes the thoughts of how and why from his mind to focus on the more pressing concern of learning how to care for a child.

Because that’s what he’s going to do. He has no idea how, or why, or what, but he will take care of this child, because… because he might be him. Or a part of him. And it soothes the grief that eats at him, empty and dark in the pit of his stomach, to know that maybe Vergil was able to do… something, in the end. Leave something behind. Make use of whatever work Arkham had been doing to try to save himself.

It’s something to research later. For now, he holds V close, muttering quiet platitudes in his ear, and heads to the phone on his desk. He’s going to need help.

* * *

Three years later, a man dressed in a pressed black suit with a stern expression shows up at Dante’s front door. Dante lets him in, despite the impulse to slam the door in his face, and he listens patiently and with no outward sign of emotion as the man explains that Dante Sparda is the last known living relative to a boy named Nero, no last name on record. How they tracked Dante down or figured out that Nero was Vergil’s is never clearly explained, but Dante follows the man to the orphanage where Nero’s being temporarily kept anyway, and the moment he sets eyes on the kid, he knows.

There’s really no debating it, once he strikes up a conversation with the kid. Nero is brash and stubborn, a trait immediately apparent in how he talks to his peers. He has a shock of white hair, tangled loosely around his face, with bright, piercing blue eyes. 

And, for the last ten minutes of the conversation, he has been staring intently at the small, crouched form of a boy in the corner that only Dante and Nero can see.

Yeah, he’s definitely a Sparda.

Dante takes him in without much fuss and the orphanage is glad to have him out of their hair. He takes Nero’s hand, introduces him as his big brother, and their family count bumps up from two to three.

V is ecstatic to have another boy in the house his age, and Nero seems well-behaved enough with V keeping him in check, so Dante learns how to deal with two five-year-olds instead of just one with the same sort of grim determination he tackles everything.

It’s just like Vergil to leave behind messes for Dante to deal with, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recap! Vergil was murdered by Arkham in the middle of a questionable ritual on top of some Serious Magic. Dante finds V on his doorstep the next morning, and of course takes him in, knowing this is somehow his brother. Then Nero comes along because Vergil's legacy is leaving behind children for Dante to raise.
> 
> Time skip up next! This was mostly just setup for the backstory. <3
> 
> Thank you to the entire Spardacest server for being awesome.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time skip into the main setting of the story! CW for this chapter: death/dying, not as explicit as the prologue (ghost reliving their death briefly)

_ **14 years later** _

_“You sure you’ve got everything? Don’t mind makin’ one more trip, if I’ve gotta.”_

V sighs into the phone, crossing the threshold of his apartment and shutting the door behind him. He’s lucky enough to have a small room to himself in one of the few apartment buildings situated on the southern side of the college campus—mostly due to his scholarship, he thinks, although he knows it is also in part because of his medical track record. It’s this same reason that Dante has called him twice since he moved into the apartment earlier that morning, and while he understands his brother’s anxiety, it’s getting exhausting.

“Yes, I’m certain,” he says, rolling his eyes as he takes a seat at his desk in the living room. “I will let you know if I’ve forgotten anything.”

_“Cool, okay,”_ there’s an awkward silence, the sound of shuffling and heavy boots hitting hardwood floor. It makes him miss the shop a little, even though he is looking forward to the opportunity to be out on his own for the first time. Dante clears his throat before he continues: _“Keep tabs on Nero for me, alright? Got this feeling he’s going to get himself into trouble.”_

V laughs at that. “Of course. I promise to keep a close eye on him.”

_“Great. Gonna hold you to that, V,”_ Dante responds, before once more falling quiet. V traces the edge of his laptop on the desk with his fingertips while he listens to the sound of Dante’s breathing, feeling vaguely guilty for his eagerness to get away from home. Dante is now alone in the shop, something that V knows is a sore spot for his brother, and the transition will certainly be hard for him. 

“We’ll be home to visit often, you know,” V says, to which Dante immediately launches into a humorless laugh. V has always been good at reading his emotions, for one reason or another. He supposes it may be a trait inherited alongside his other psychic abilities (although it has never worked quite so well with Nero). The laugh is immediately and obviously forced, and V sighs once more, running a hand through his hair to sweep it back from his face. “Dante. Call Lady. Spend a nice night without us in your way.”

_“Good idea. We can get wasted and watch shitty movies without your commentary,”_ he replies, and there’s finally a hint of genuine warmth in his tone that makes V breathe a sigh of relief. _“Thanks, kiddo.”_

“Don’t thank me for reminding you to have a life.” V can almost picture his older brother shrugging on the other line, that absurd, casual smile on his face. 

_“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I gotta get some work done. Call me if you need anything,”_ he says, and while V highly doubts Dante will go get any work done what-so-ever, he will take the chance to be free from his brother’s constant worrying while he can They say their goodbyes and he hangs up, placing the cell phone face down on the desk with a quiet sigh. 

Moving out is bittersweet, for more reasons than one. It is the first time that V has been on his own, a fact that he finds both exciting and intimidating all at once. Without the heavily warded safety net of the shop, he is bound to experience more… interesting side effects of his bloodline, a fact that Dante had made abundantly clear to both Nero and V upon their moving onto campus. While they have attempted to ward his apartment, there is only so much that could be done in such a short window of time. 

Be that as it may, he is looking forward to college. He drags his course list across the desk from where he has placed his paperwork, scanning the names and classes once more, fascinated by the idea of studying a subject of his own choosing. V has decided to focus primarily on medieval anthropology and literature, although this year, being their first, will be spent mostly with prerequisite courses and general education credits. 

His eyes linger on one course in particular, a sharp, cold coil of panic twisting itself into his gut for reasons he can’t quite identify. _History 102: Ancient and Medieval History._ There is nothing about the course that is strange—he’s selected it himself, as his starting point for his field of study, but something about the name makes a low, dark panic rise up in his chest. His gaze gravitates to the name of the professor: Dr. Leslie Goldstein. Reading the name causes relief to wash over him immediately, although that, too, is puzzling, because he isn’t sure _why_ he should be relieved.

With an uneasy sigh he pushes the course list away. He is probably just exhausted after a long day of driving, moving, and unpacking. Perhaps this is a sign that he should retire for the night, although it is a little early for that. 

He pushes himself to his feet, casting a glance around his new home. It’s a small studio apartment, with only two rooms—bathroom, and everything else—but it’s cozy all the same. He has already filled it with books and worn, used furniture, given to them by Lady, Trish, and an entire army of people who had been more than happy to assist Dante with this aspect of their life. 

Moving out on his own may be intimidating, but on Monday they will begin their classes, and he will have something to focus on. In the meantime, he is content to enjoy the silence of his own home.

His phone buzzes on his desk, a flurry of messages that send it skittering across the old oak surface. There is only one person who texts with such intense ferocity, and he gathers up his phone, swiping to unlock the screen.

_Hey_  
_You all settled in?_  
_Pretty weird havin our own place now huh_  
_You should come over tomorrow and check out my dorm, its pretty sweet_  
_Plus its like right next to the union and theyve got all kinds of good food in there_

V smiles at the bombardment of text messages from his brother. At least he will have no shortage of excitement as far as his family is concerned.

He responds to Nero while he readies for bed, explaining that he would be happy to meet him tomorrow for lunch at one of the “sweet restaurants” in the student union. This seems to appease him, because he responds less frequently, and so V curls into bed with a book of poetry Dante had given him before he had moved out, trailing his fingers down the worn leather spine.

There’s something familiar about it. Holding it is almost immediately soothing, although he has only scanned through the pages once since it was given to him. He spends the night reading each poem slowly, appreciating the artwork as he goes, before he drifts off to sleep with the book still in his lap.

* * *

V awakes to the sound of rapid, pained breathing.

For a moment he is disoriented, uncertain where he is or what time it might be, before the previous day slowly creeps back into his awareness and he remembers that he is in his new studio apartment. He is lying on his back in bed, the book of poetry open in his lap, and there is the unmistakable sound of someone gasping in pain coming from somewhere to his right, in the center of the room.

V closes his eyes. He expected this. The wards are too new, and although they researched the history of this apartment before he moved into it, it is possible that there was something that went unreported. Slowly he counts backward from ten, hand loosely resting on his chest while he counts in time with his breathing. He’s been through this before.

When he gets down to one, the groaning has only gotten louder and more desperate, and he opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling instead. Perhaps he should try to help. That is the family business, after all: dealing with hauntings, aiding the lingering spirits of the dead in finding absolution and peace. 

Resolute in his decision, V swings his legs off of the bed and looks toward the middle of the room. The sight that greets him makes him immediately pause: there is a man no older than V himself spread on the floor on his back, hands scraping across the old worn down carpet as he desperately tries to move, to do _something_. He stares unblinkingly at the ceiling, face twisted in pain and fear, pale eyes wide and unseeing. 

Reliving his death, no doubt. V has seen this before, has been warned by Dante that this is one of the times when they can do little to aid the dead. It is akin to watching a recording: the dead will live through these final moments once more, blind and deaf to the world, until they inevitably perish and fade away. He wonders if this man was murdered in this room, because that is undoubtedly what this is, judging by the fear and anger and confusion that twist his expression into something dark and borderline inhuman.

Quietly V pushes himself to his feet, walking into the center of the room to join the other man as he claws his way through his death. He kneels on the floor at his side, looking down at his—familiar? Why does he look so familiar?—face. The man surges forward, then, in some last-ditch effort to stand, but he is unsuccessful, and he falls back with a pained, wheezing gasp.

_This is it_, V thinks, fidgeting uncomfortably where he stands vigil, the only witness to this man’s desperate and lonely final moments. On a whim, he leans forward to get a better look at the man’s face (why does he feel like he has seen him somewhere before?), whispering quietly, “It’s okay. It will be over soon.”

Wild, panicked eyes turn on him at once, and V balks in hesitation. He can hear him? That’s not how this—

A hand shoots out and grabs him by the wrist, cold and tingling, but horrifyingly _physical_. It takes every ounce of his willpower to not jump in alarm, and even then he gasps, reflexively pulling his arm away from that powerful grip.

“What’s happening?” The man asks through a gurgle of blood, voice weak and faint. Although he is looking at V, he is given the impression that he does not really see him, instead staring past him to some point directly behind him.

“You’re dying,” V says, matter-of-factly—he has never felt a need to lie to the dead. The man writhes on the floor in response, as if V has reminded him suddenly of this fact, his breathing quick and panicked. He still has hold of V’s wrist, transparent fingers digging into his flesh, and—and he can feel it, the way his nails bite into his skin, and it’s _horrible_, and he doesn’t understand what’s happening, because _this should not be possible._

There’s a strained moment where the man in front of him tenses, his grip on V’s arm tightening to the point of pain, and then he finally falls still. With one last shuddering exhale, he vanishes, leaving only a numb, icy tingling behind where he had been holding V’s wrist.

It takes V a considerable amount of time to push himself to his feet and he shakily runs a hand through his hair, sweeping it back away from his face. That man had looked so _familiar_, although it had been hard to tell through the twisted expression of pain and fear that had warped his face. He stumbles back to his bed, climbing onto the sheets and snatching his cell phone from the bedside table. It is three-thirty in the morning. 

He lets out a breath. Perhaps Dante is still awake? But no, if he calls his older brother already, that will be as good as giving up, and he is determined to stand on his own. Instead, he crawls beneath the covers, swiping aimlessly at various apps on his phone in an attempt to keep his mind busy. 

It is not so much that he is afraid of what he has seen—he has witnessed enough in his nineteen years of life to become rather immune to the presence of spirits. It is more that he is bothered by the uncertainty of it, by the fact that the rules that he has leaned on so heavily, that Dante has preached in his coaching of Nero and V, have been broken. 

That man should not have been able to touch him. On top of that, he had looked shockingly familiar, and something about him sticks with V, tickling at the back of his mind.

By the time sleep reclaims him, the sun has already begun to creep above the horizon.

* * *

“No fucking way,” Nero says around a mouth full of rice and grilled vegetables from an “Asian inspired” restaurant in the student union. “You already saw a fucking ghost. _In your apartment._ V, _seriously_, it’s like you’re cursed with this shit.”

“It would seem so,” V says, pushing a pile of fried noodles across his styrofoam plate with disinterest. Either from the lack of sleep or the image of what he saw last night that keeps playing against his eyelids, he finds he has no appetite.

“You didn’t tell Dante, did you?” Nero asks, digging for more information, always far too curious for his own good.

V’s eyes snap up from the half eaten food, appallment clear in his tone. “Of course not,” he hisses under his breath. “We both know how oddly overprotective he can be. And I, for one, do not wish to return to the shop so soon,” he fixes Nero with a stern expression, daring his brother to snitch. “So I advise you keep this to yourself. Or we’ll both be dragged back home before the first semester even ends."

"Jeez, chill, I wasn't going to tell him," Nero huffs, cramming more of his rice and vegetable concoction into his mouth. His next words are muffled, a low grumble of annoyance made almost incomprehensible by the food in his mouth, "you get so cranky when you haven't had your beauty sleep."

V doesn’t deign to respond to that, instead focusing once more on his plate of barely touched noodles. Truthfully he doesn't know _what_ Dante will do should he come to find out about last night's ghostly interactions. Certainly not let him continue living in his brand new apartment, that's for sure. The thought of losing his freedom—the thought of _moving_ again, which is something he’s learned is awful—helps him make up his mind immediately. No. He’s going to have to figure this one out himself.

“I don’t think it’s the noodles’ fault, V,” Nero says, chin propped in his hand, blue eyes watching V not eat. “Eat your lunch or I’m gonna cram it down your throat. Then we can head over to the library or something and see what they’ve got. Old school like this, they’re bound to have some shit we can look through.”

Reluctantly he complies, finishing his meal in relative silence. Nero spends his time tapping away at his phone, pulling up the campus map to get a feel for where the library is located, mapping out the path they can take that will allow them to pass the major buildings they’ll go to for classes as well.

“May as well figure out where we’re going on Monday while we’re at it, right?” He says, digging in his jacket pocket for the beat-up little notepad he always carries around, jotting down a few building names. V watches him with a warm fondness in his chest, hiding a small smile behind his hand. For all his crassness, Nero is surprisingly thoughtful, when he wants to be.

“May as well.”

* * *

The library is the oldest building on campus, a five story monstrosity with marble pillars, vaulted windows, and a truly impressive collection of gargoyles lining the roof. V can’t help but feel a little giddy as they walk into the entrance hall and he takes a moment to lose himself in the view, looking upward toward the towering ceiling all five stories above him. It is almost dizzying, and he leans a little on his cane to give himself better leverage to truly appreciate the architectural beauty that rises above him. The Red Grave library is a hole in the wall in comparison.

Nero walks beside him wide-eyed with wonder, gaze sweeping up the sheer wall of clear glass that puts every floor’s bookshelves on display from the main lobby. “This place is fucking huge,” he says in a somewhat exaggerated whisper, doing his best to maintain a quiet indoor voice. “There’s gotta be something here.”

V nods. “That is likely, yes.”

He crosses the marble floor to a nearby information kiosk, pausing in front of a map that is hanging on the wall behind a clear plastic case. Slowly he traces his finger down the listed names of collections and categories that detail what can be found on each floor.The fourth floor contains the bulk of their ancient history texts—V will undoubtedly end up spending a majority of his time there during his semester—and the top floor contains the library’s collection of donated manuscripts and miscellaneous texts.

Both are likely candidates for what they are looking for. He indicates this to Nero, who rubs at his nose in that gesture that means he’s thinking about something before nodding in agreement.

“I say we start with the fourth floor, that sounds easiest. Lookin’ through a bunch of random crap will take forever,” he says, to which V nods in agreement. The top floor is a good option as a last resort, but as it stands they have errands to run to prepare for their coming classes next week, and he has little faith that a collection of donations will be organized in anything resembling useful.

Nero takes off into the lobby and V follows after him, pace frustratingly slow. The lack of sleep the night before has left him both irritable and exhausted, which is taking an obvious toll on his physical endurance. By the time they make it to the elevator, V is forced to lean back against the metal wall to catch his breath.

“You gonna be okay?” Nero says, taking a spot at his side.

He nods. “Just tired. Believe it or not, returning to bed after the events of last night proved… challenging.” He says it with a wry smile, but Nero looks at him seriously anyway, brow creased in stubborn worry. Nero is just as protective as Dante, constantly worrying and doing his absolute best to pretend that he isn’t. From Nero, it is at least charming.

“Yeah, I bet. You want me to come stay with you?”

“I fail to see how that will help. But thank you for the offer.” There’s a loud, tinny _ding_ as the elevator reaches its destination, the doors creaking open with a long, slow shudder. V eyes them warily as they pass through them, wondering how old they are and when they were last serviced. From the sounds of it, they are showing their age.

Exiting the elevator places them on a balcony which overlooks the expansive lobby below—were it not for the glass wall that stretches from floor to ceiling, a transparent but at least solid barrier, the sight would be nauseating. Even so, V turns away from it quickly, setting his sights on the rows upon rows of texts that fill this floor.

“Split up?” Nero suggests and V nods in response. His brother moves to the furthest corner, leaving V with the closer shelves to investigate, no doubt in an effort to spare him the walk through the entire winding labyrinth of this floor. 

V loses himself, then, in the enjoyable silence and the smell of musty paper and old leather. The books on this floor range from newly released essays on various parts of history to ancient reproductions, and he finds himself becoming distracted from the task at hand more than once as he slowly drifts through each aisle. To think that all of this is readily available to him. 

He exits the current aisle, turning to his right to enter the next, and as he does he sees him: legs crossed, chin propped on his fist, elbow resting on one of the arms of a lounge chair tucked against the wall. His head is tilted down, as if he is reading an invisible book in his lap, and in the light of day V is able to get a good look at his face, the sharp line of his brow and nose, the small, serious frown on his lips. 

That same sense of familiarity hits him, tugging at the edge of his awareness. There’s something about this scene that gives V déjà vu, as if he has been in this situation before himself, curled into one of these lounge chairs while he studies for a history exam that he knows is coming up next week. The topic is one he is particularly fond of—East Asian history, particularly the art of warfa—

He shakes his head, dismissing the thought with it. Where had that come from? Classes haven’t even started yet--to think about a research paper he has not yet been assigned, on a topic he is not interested in studying, is strange.

The shaking of his head seems to alter something, because the man jolts as if in surprise, looking up from his lap to fix V with icy blue eyes. There is a single heartbeat where they stare at each other, transfixed, before he fades, and V is left glaring at an empty chair.

“Hey, V? Did you hear me?” Nero’s voice snaps him out of his daze, the warm hand that comes to rest on his forearm causing him to startle in surprise.

“I’m sorry?” He replies, turning to face Nero. He’s frowning at him, clearly aware of the slight tremor that shoots down V’s spine and creeps its way across his skin.

"Maybe you should go back home and rest," Nero says, gently squeezing V’s forearm in a comforting gesture before withdrawing. Concern has etched itself into the creases on his face, the pinch of his brow and down turned lips, and V cannot help the smile that creeps onto his own features in response. Nero has a point, as much as V hates to admit it. With classes so rapidly approaching, it would be best to get some rest.

"I think I will, yes." His agreement just makes Nero smile wider, and V walks with him back down to the lobby of the library, listening to Nero's excited ramblings about his dorm room and the other students he shares his space with.

On his way past the wide glass paneling that overlooks the lobby, he thinks he catches a glimpse of silver and dark blue, moving slowly between the bookshelves they have left behind. When he turns his head to focus on it, however, the image is gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT CONTINUES. There will be one more chapter close to VerV week after this one before we'll be slowing down updates considerably. Gotta celebrate the week while it's here, though, since it's the reason for this thing's existence.
> 
> CW for stabbing/murder, right at the very end, but not described in any detail.

What he had hoped was an isolated incident proves to be a permanent fixture in his life throughout the first semester: V gets glimpses and quick glances of the spectre nearly everywhere he goes following the library incident.

Small things, mere seconds at most, where he will see in his peripheral a head of white hair or frigid blue eyes that seem to trace his every move. A wisp of blue velvet, sweeping around a corner in the union. A flash of silvery-blue embroidery, standing out in the dark of his apartment hallway.

From the flashes of his appearance that V gathers, he's decided he looks absurd. Either he died a long time ago or his wardrobe preferences were questionable.

* * *

He's hastily gathering his textbooks, nearly late for his next class, when he hears it: a soft murmur, easily missed if you weren't constantly on the lookout for the communicative efforts of the dead. (It is the family business, after all.)

V instinctively knows it must belong to the man, yet when he turns, there is no one with him—no silver or blue or gold lurking in the shadows. So V lets it go, for now. He's already ten minutes late to class and he hasn't even left his apartment yet, and despite the best efforts of his new companion, he will not allow this to interrupt his studies.

* * *

The next time it happens, he's in the shower, and the sound causes him to jump, nearly slipping and cracking his head on the ceramic tiles lining the walls.

"Holy shit," V hisses under his breath, steadying himself at the last moment.

This time, the sound is accompanied by his presence, standing in the corner near the sink. V can only openly gape at the spectre, who doesn't seem to mind one bit that he's currently getting a front view to V's... everything.

"Do you — do you _mind_?"

The man's eyes lift from where they had been staring holes into the towel rack to meet orbs of green. Looking… Confused. Lost.

Then, his eyes travel lower, and before V can experience the full, sheer embarrassment that's already coloring his ears, the spectre's eyes go wide. And then he's gone.

Again.

* * *

"That's not —"

If it wasn't for the… disturbance beginning to become a reoccurring thing, V thinks he'd have punctured a hole in the shitty drywall with his cane out of sheer surprise. He had been so focused on his homework that he had momentarily forgotten about his unwanted ghostly interludes.

V breathes. "What?"

"The correct answer—not—"

_The correct—_

V glances down at the math problem he's been working on for the past twenty minutes.

_Is this for real,_ he thinks dryly, frustration burning in his cheeks, flushed red with his annoyance. First he stalks him, then he watches him bathe, and now he is _correcting his homework_.

"Fine, then. Do share with the rest of the class what the correct answer may be."

The air around him grows frigid, making him shiver. Ugh.

"Five."

V can't help it. He laughs.

* * *

_This has become my life_, V muses as he lays spread eagle on his bed, head hanging upside down over the side.

He has three midterms in two days. Dante has called three times asking him about any weird incidents, as if he is clairvoyant in addition to being a medium (a fact V has questioned more than once in his life). He has the migraine of the century. Oh, and the damn ghost _won't shut up_.

It's nothing he can make sense of, of course. Gibberish—most likely due to the spectre struggling to fully, properly manifest.

So he's stuck like this, sharing his space with a broken radio, sounding more like static and white noise than actual words. The noises have been playing at an increasing frequency that has been driving away his sleep and making focusing on anything outside of the _damn sound_ nearly impossible.

He is going to fail his first semester of college because a ghost wouldn't shut up.

He supposes that's probably fitting, given his family history.

* * *

"That is not even a _cohesive sentence_," V all but outright screams at the damn ghost.

Who does nothing but click his tongue in response—the first clear noise it’s been able to make and it’s to _sass_ him.

It's four in the morning. He hasn't gotten decent sleep in a week due to his new roommate, who has been incredibly talkative for the past three consecutive days.

"You are not—" the spectre struggles. Again.

V groans and tugs his pillow over his head. Either to muffle the sounds, or smother himself, either one works just fine for him.

"—_listening._"

Of course he isn't listening. That's the damn point.

* * *

It’s the week after his midterm exams—which went spectacularly awful, thanks to the lack of sleep he’s been getting lately, when he finally caves. A slow and quiet Friday evening, he has been spending it pouring over his notes from the class he thinks he did the worst in, willing himself to remember the dates and the names that had escaped him during his exam. He spends his nights with his brother more lately than he would normally, because Nero is loud and expressive and full of life, and his presence makes his other apartment mate easier to tolerate.

"I'm going back home this weekend, if you'd care to join me."

His declaration immediately earns a surprised noise from Nero, who is sitting on his couch, legs propped up on his coffee table, playing some game on his phone while V studies on the bed. They haven't gone home much since they moved onto campus, instead enjoying their freedom and focusing on their coursework, but after his last half of a semester of hauntings, V has had enough.

He will make this ghost manifest even if that means learning how to do it himself.

"Eh, I dunno, Nico's got an invite to some house party she wants me to check out with her this weekend," Nero responds, cursing under his breath at his phone in frustration. He tosses it onto the couch and tucks his hands behind his head thoughtfully, watching V flip through his anthropology notes now instead, always in need of something to hold his attention. "Was kinda hoping you'd come with us."

In the corner of the room, there's a burst of somehow sarcastic sounding static. V bites back the impulse to throw his pen in that general direction.

Nero doesn't seem to notice—he hasn't reacted to the ghostly presence even once, which is almost infuriating, because that means this is V's personal problem until he can get the ghost to manifest entirely. Why Nero’s unable to see or hear his companion is a problem V hasn’t bothered to spend much time considering, partly because he thinks it might be better that Nero doesn’t know. His brother would just needlessly worry if he knew how often V is stuck dealing with this apparition.

And partly because, if he is being honest, he welcomes the challenge. It is one thing to hear about the work Dante does and to lend support where they can--it is quite another to take what is essentially one of their jobs on for himself. It feels like an opportunity to prove himself, in a sense, although perhaps that is a misguided way of looking at it. He has nothing to prove, and his situation is, quite frankly, becoming somewhat dire, and so attempting to resolve the problem is only practical at this point.

"I think I'll pass on another of her 'house parties’ irregardless," V replies, closing his notes and shoving them alongside his textbook into his bag. “The last was a bit _too_... unruly for my tastes.”

Nico’s preferences for house parties involves an unbearable amount of noise and chaos—there was at least one flipped car at that last one, if he recalls correctly. The woman seems to thrive on mayhem. V is more than happy to avoid them.

Nero laughs. “Fair. Whatcha going back for, anyway?” 

V hums as he zips up his bag and stands, moving about the apartment to pack whatever belongings he might need. He’ll leave in the morning, but it’s already late, and packing beforehand will save himself some effort later. It is also a convenient excuse to linger over Nero’s question, which he is unsure how to answer.

Nero is aware of his problem at a cursory level, lacking any of the details or, more importantly, the frequency. Should he inform him that he intends to return to the shop purely to dig through Dante’s rather extensive collection of research on the topic?

Perhaps. That would be the responsible thing to do, at least, should he need his brother’s assistance in the actual act of manifesting and assisting the spirit.

But something stops him, some amount of uncertainty that makes unease curl in his stomach and freezes his tongue. Pride, too—he wants to do this himself, should be more than capable of dealing with one little haunting without needing to involve the remainder of his family in the matter.

Instead, he just says he’s feeling homesick, and listens to Nero tease him over the dull, persistent static coming from the corner for the remainder of the night over it.

* * *

Being back home ends up being a reprieve in more ways than one—for whatever reason, the ghost seems incapable of manifesting within the walls of the shop. V’s not sure if this is because he’s far enough away from campus that he can’t reach him here or if the wards that have been etched into the very foundation of the building are keeping it at bay. Probably a bit of both, if he had to guess, but he does not particularly care to figure out the details. It is blissfully, finally quiet, for the first time in weeks, and he is going to appreciate the silence while he has it.

He stands now in the library in the back of the shop, browsing up and down the shelves of disorganized and dusty tomes that Dante has kept stored here for as long as V can remember. Although Dante doesn’t use them for reference much himself, research had been V’s one major contribution to the family business, even when he was young, and he moves through the room and scans the shelves with an expertise gained from years of sorting through Dante’s mess. 

The book he is looking for is one from Dante’s mother’s collection—a handwritten and untitled compilation of basic rituals and spells to help empower and ultimately assist spirits. It is basic material for dealing with the spirits of the dead, and although V has never performed any of these rituals himself, he is fairly certain he can figure it out. If Dante can do it, after all…

He finds what he’s looking for tucked on the top shelf of the second bookcase. When he pulls it down, a cascade of dust rains down around him, drifting through the air and making a mess of his shirt and hair and face. With a grumble he shakes it off, then sweeps his hand across the cover of the tome to clean the worn, brown leather cover. He allows himself a moment to appreciate the construction of the book, always impressed by the attention to detail that Dante's mother put into her craft.

The cover is incredibly intricate, although it lacks any sort of title or identifying label. Elaborately carved roses and thorny vines have been etched into the soft leather cover with a single brass buckle holding it closed. He flips it over and inspects the other side, just as intricate and delicately carved as the front cover and equally lacking in any identifying information. An old, hand-bound, unlabeled book containing the rituals to commune with the dead is as cliche as it can possibly get, a fact that makes him laugh quietly to himself. A flair for the dramatic must run in the family. Judging by the other books that V knows can be found in Eva’s research, the woman seemed to have a certain style to her work.

With book in hand, V steps down for the small stool he had used to reach the top shelf, set on returning to his room for the remainder of the evening. As he moves, his eyes ghost across a pile of books that have been placed on a nearby coffee table, and he pauses. They look new, or, at least, they are unfamiliar to V, which is strange, considering how much time he spent in this room during his youth. Unable to contain his curiosity, he crosses the room and sits on the beat-up leather chaise lounge that Dante keeps beside the table, pulling one of the books into his lap.

Up close, he can tell that it isn’t _new_, per se—the cover is worn along the edges and the spine is supple, clearly opened many times. He trails his fingertip down the side as his chest burns with something like… anxiety? Want? He doesn’t really know how to describe it. There’s something about the book that is familiar, and he flips it open, scanning the pages for some clue as to what it might be.

The book is about alchemy and herbalism, a strange topic for Dante to pursue, seeing as he has never once practiced either. There are countless notes written with a black ballpoint pen into the margins throughout the book. V doesn’t recognize the handwriting, a mixture of print and cursive script that is borderline unreadable in its chaos. Despite the untidy script, there seems to be some order to it, and V finds that reading it comes easily after a moment of studying the looping curves and messy lines.

Odd, that Dante would be researching herbology. He wonders if perhaps a job has come up that requires such knowledge, debates asking for details to sate his own curiosity. V has always had a soft spot for this aspect of their work, and a new project could be exactly what he needs to distract himself from his otherworldly problem.

As he flips through the book, he notices that the script in the margins appears to stop halfway through, as if the previous reader had forgotten or simply lost interest in their research. For some reason that he cannot quite explain, seeing this incompleteness fills him with an intense compulsion to take the book with him. He has to breathe through his teeth and force himself to return the leather tome to the pile on the coffee table. If he takes it when Dante has been so obviously looking through it, it would be immediately noticeable. Besides, he has no reason for taking a book on herbology—he doubts it will help much with his current problem.

Shaking off the strange sense of unease, V climbs once more to his feet, clutching the book of rituals close. He casts one last look around the library, breathes in the comforting feeling and scent of dust and old leather and _home_, and then makes the trek back to his bedroom.

Tomorrow, he'll return to his apartment and manifest a ghost.

* * *

“Is all of this really necessary?” V mutters to himself, pushing a hand back through his hair to sweep the loose strands out of his face. The act smears a line of white chalk on his cheek, which he does not notice. It is sometime after midnight, though he has lost track of the exact hour as he’s worked.

V is surrounded by a circle of dollar store candles with a piece of chalk held in one hand and the leather tome from Dante’s in the other, staring at the small, scribbled handwriting within that details the steps to summon and manifest a spirit. There are five pages of instructions simply on the setup of the magical runes and atmosphere necessary for a successful ritual. He has been through four of them, and the fifth looks to be more complicated than the others, demanding that he scrawl intricate runes onto his apartment's living room carpet in patterns he can barely make out through the faded ink. A headache has already begun to grow bright and blinding behind his eyes, but he is determined in this pursuit, and refuses to call it quits now.

Besides, there’s probably another five pages in the back about how to properly end the ritual now that he has begun it. Stopping now would save him no time and would fail to accomplish what he has set out to do, which he cannot tolerate.

V bends down and traces the chalk onto his carpet into an intricate, circular pattern a little like a sunflower, only with considerably more runes etched around the sides. With that done, he moves directly across the circle, bending to draw another, similar pattern on the opposite side. The instructions make it quite clear that he is to walk in a specific way while he does this, forming a star or pentacle like shape with his movements, and so he does his best in the dim light of his apartment to mimic the pattern scrawled into the book.

With the runes in place, he feels a tingling along the back of his neck, like a staticy balloon has been run up his back and head—no doubt a sign that the magic has begun to settle, the circle of power open to his next steps. It makes him shiver. Careful not to disturb his delicate chalk work, V steps out of the circle, taking his seat on the dining room chair he has pulled to the middle of his living room.

“Now what…” He mutters to himself as he flips to the next pages, scanning over the instructions quickly. Now should come some incantation, words to power the markings he has drawn on the floor. Something meant to bring the spirit here, although he suspects it is already hovering in the shadows of his apartment, as it has been for the last several months. He’s heard the staticy burst of its voice once or twice since he set out to do this, but more than that, he has felt the very clear and obvious sensation of eyes boring into the back of his head since he pulled the tome from his bookbag this evening.

The remainder of the instructions are straightforward enough and the incantation is blissfully in English, rather than some ancient language no one speaks any more, which spares him the trouble of struggling his way through pronunciations. With a sigh and a nervous glance around the apartment, he sets about reciting the phrases as they are written in the book.

Two sentences in he hears it—the very clear and distinct sound of a huff of breath, almost in _annoyance_. It is promptly followed by another short huff, then a grumble, something almost like words, yet still indistinct. The sound may still be mostly static, but it is the clearest the spirit has been in weeks, and so he presses on, determination inspired by the quiet signs of magic at work.

There’s a gust of air past his face when he reads the third line, the hair on the back of his neck and arms standing to attention with the fourth. When he’s halfway through the full reading, he glances up through his eyelashes and sees the vague, wavering outline of a man standing near—but not in—the circle he’s drawn on the floor.

As if he is _inspecting_ it. The spectre walks with a proud, measured step, completing a full circuit around the runes as if they were simply sidewalk chalk art drawn by a child and not a complicated ritual meant to summon and manifest spirits. He swears he can see it shrug its shoulders in dismissal of his work. The sheer audacity of this ghost is astonishing.

Careful not to let his voice falter with his annoyance at the ghost’s actions, V focuses his attention back on the book in his lap. Each word seems to bring more color and solidity to the image that stalks through his room before him. Soon, he is able to clearly make out the dark-blue of a coat, the silvery sweep of hair, and the rather defined cut of his jaw and brow, features that had otherwise been blurred, like a water-damaged photograph, until this time. The spell must be working, then, although it is not quite going to his expectations. 

There’s another gust of wind and the feeling of static washing over his skin as he completes the incantation. When he looks up from the book once more, the man has finally taken form, transparent but whole and obviously human.

V finds himself at a loss for words now that he’s seeing his ghost in full, manifested in his living room in the middle of the night. The man snaps him out of his daze by turning in one more slow circuit before glancing down at his own hands and arms, a frown pinching his brow.

“There are much more efficient ways to do this,” he says, as if V didn’t just spend the last two hours doing nothing but trying to help him. 

“I didn’t ask for your—” he stops himself short as he realizes that arguing with a spirit is certainly _not_ a productive way to deal with this situation. Instead, he flips through the book on his lap to the notes several chapters later about identifying the source of a spirit’s connection to the physical world. This is something he is more familiar with, having seen Dante perform this a number of times as part of their work; however, it never hurts to have some guidance. He is desperate enough at this point that he would like to be absolutely certain he does this correctly.

“I’m trying to _help_ you,” V says instead, looking up from his book to seek out the spirit’s face. The man is watching him curiously, gaze shifting from V’s face to the book in his lap, a curious flicker of emotion passing over his features before it falls flat once more. V continues, undeterred: “Can you actually hear me this time?”

A blank stare and a single quirked brow in response. He’s going to assume that’s a yes.

V clears his throat. What were the questions Dante always asked? He should try to determine if there is some physical object tethering the man to this world, perhaps something in the apartment, since that is where V witnessed him reliving his death. If he was murdered here—a thought that still sends a small shiver down V’s spine—then perhaps some trace of what happened remains. Would the spirit be aware of that?

Best to start with the basics, he supposes.

He sits a little straighter, regards the man with his full attention. “What is your name?” V begins, as is customary.

The spirit looks... almost taken aback by such a simple question. The man takes so long to respond that V begins to hope they aren’t going to be stumped on the first question in a very long list of them.

“Vergil,” is the response he gets, as the spirit—as _Vergil’s_ gaze removes itself from the eye contact he seemed so intent on holding, to instead observe the room around them with bored interest. There is an air about this man that rankles V—more than the sleepless nights, the incomprehensible rambling in his ear, the creeping in his bathroom. He looks almost _bored_.

He truly, utterly _hates_ this ghost. But at the very least he seems cooperative enough to answer his questions without any additional prodding. Small blessings.

V mentally counts backwards, starting at five and wondering if he should have instead started at ten, in an effort to calm both his anger and his nerves. When he reopens his eyes, Vergil is still ignoring him, gaze sweeping around the room and inspecting all of V's belongings.

Next question, then. “How old are you?”

This question immediately halts him in his tracks, back bent slightly as he was previously busying himself with glaring holes into—ah, his cellphone? _Just how long ago did this guy die?_

No answer is provided, however, and V has half a mind to ask again, maybe more firmly, assert himself as the one in control, something he has felt himself lacking for the past several months since the beginning of the semester. It only occurs to him when he’s already pried his lips apart, breathing in and ready to repeat himself, that maybe Vergil... simply doesn’t know.

Or maybe he does, because the look he gets when the spirit turns to meet his eyes again feels like a thousand tiny needles pinning him to where he’s sitting on the rickety old dining room chair. 

"Nineteen,” he answers, although there's a slight lilt to his voice that makes him sound uncertain. An approximation, perhaps, based on what little the spirit can remember.

“Nineteen, okay.” 

“And you? How old are you?” What? That is not how this is supposed to work, V is supposed to be the one asking the questions here, not the other way around—“Well?” Vergil pushes, watching him, waiting.

Baffled, V replies regardless, “Nineteen…”

Something about his answer seems to satisfy Vergil, a piece of information to fk in a puzzle that V does not know the specifics of. It leaves V feeling as if he is missing something, some detail that he’s not getting from Vergil, but he pushes it aside. With more questioning, he may be able to understand the odd behavior of his ghost. 

The following question is customary and personal both, a question that’s been haunting V—_literally_—since the day he moved in and awoke to a spirit thrashing in pain on his bedroom floor. “Why are you here?”

Vergil is back to taking inventory of every single one of V’s possessions, apparently, seemingly unbothered by the fact that he is dead or that V is trying to hold some semblance of conversation with him. After a long moment of inspection, he turns once more to V, expression unreadable.

“I died,” Vergil says, dryly, and before V can think of a suitable response, he continues, “Why do you have my book?”

“What—” _Oh_, V thinks, as his eyes shift to glance at the small bookshelf in the far corner of his apartment. “What do you mean your book?"

It's perhaps the least useful thing he could've said in response, and Vergil seems to agree, because he gives V this look that very clearly expresses his disdain with the unhelpful answer. He crosses the room, then—through the runes, of course, because why would anything work for this ghost the way that it is meant to—to stand before the bookshelf, crouching down to have a better look at the aforementioned book.

"It _was_ mine," Vergil says, reaching forward to touch it. For a moment V thinks that perhaps he will somehow pull it off, but then his hand sweeps through the bookshelf up to the middle of his forearm instead, and Vergil mutters something unintelligible under his breath in response.

V clears his throat, climbing to his feet to join the spectre at his bookshelf. "It was gifted to me." 

V reaches down, picking up the leather-bound collection of Blake poetry, holding it close to his chest. In the months since he moved out, he has found great comfort in the poetry contained within, has read it enough that he has begun to memorize the words to the verses which appeal to him the most. Vergil looks at the book with something bordering on fondness, the creases at his eyes and brows going soft as he examines it in V’s hands.

“Is this what… binds you here, then?” He stumbles in his question, uncertain of the proper way to refer to whatever it is that’s keeping Vergil tied to the physical plane. The book would make some sense—he received it at the same time that he moved into the apartment and has had it on his person nearly constantly since. On top of that, the book is clearly well-loved, the cover soft and the pages worn on the edges from constant use. A particular attachment to it may be enough.

It begs the question of what Dante was doing with the book in the first place and why he saw it fit to give it to V, but he isn’t given much time to consider this before Vergil’s exasperated sigh breaks him out of his thoughts.

“No." The other man turns to face V now, arms crossed on his transparent chest, eyeing V as if he's seeing him for the first time. Icy blue eyes sweep across his form and send a shiver up his spine, goosebumps rising on the back of his arms and neck. Even though he can see the ghost now, it's gaze still seems to set his instincts on edge, a passive knowledge that something is inherently wrong.

"Then... the apartment?" V suggests, and Vergil sighs, a noise that is... not unkind, necessarily, but perhaps more tired. 

"No," Vergil says, pushing a hand through his hair and away from his face in a gesture that is intimately familiar. "That would be because of _you._"

V's thoughts screech to a halt, his vision narrowing down to just Vergil. What? Him? "Why?"

"You have no idea..." Vergil says, voice trailing off. He returns to glaring at the book once more, shoulders tight and back stiff, as if he's considering his next words. When he speaks again, his voice is quiet, measured, "Who gave you this book?"

"My brother," V responds, holding out the book of poetry to inspect it thoughtfully, the elaborate golden V on the cover, the soft, supple leather that has been worn in with time. Was it just some thrift shop purchase? Or...

For some reason, he supplies a name, feeling it only right: "Dante."

Vergil's eyes immediately go wide, lips parting as if he is going to speak. When he snaps his mouth shut V swears he can hear the sound of his teeth clacking with the force of it. The spectre stands there in mute disbelief, looking at the book in V's hands, as if the name has shocked him into stillness.

"Dante," Vergil repeats, finally, slowly, sounding out every single syllable of the name as if it is something precious, something to be treasured. When he looks at V again, his expression has been wiped of all emotion, curiously flat—even for the dead. "My twin brother."

"Your—_what_?"

V knew that Dante had a brother by blood—knew, too, that he was gone, presumed dead, though V has never been given the details. What he did not know was that Dante's brother was, first and foremost, his twin, nor did he know that the book Dante had gifted him had belonged to his brother. He didn't know his brother's name, that he had, apparently, died at the age of nineteen. 

Dante has never talked about his past. When Nero and V had grown to an age where a natural curiosity about their family had become part of their whispered conversations together, they'd approached him about it. Who was their mother? Father? Did they have any other family?

Dante had, as usual, brushed it off. He had said they were all a family together and wasn't that enough? He'd always be there for them, and yeah, their family wasn't very big, but together they were doing pretty damn good, he thought. The only family member Dante had ever talked about in any detail was his mother, Eva, the founder of the Devil May Cry shop and researcher behind all of the knowledge on which their job was based.

Learning that Dante had a _twin brother_ who died when he was nineteen is a shock that V isn't entirely sure he's prepared to deal with. Nor is he prepared to handle the fact that, for whatever reason, Dante's brother is bound to the physical world because of... V.

"I see he never spoke of me," Vergil says dryly, as if he does not care that his twin brother has spent the last two decades pretending he doesn't exist. V gets the feeling that's not true—there's a tightness in his chest and a sour taste in the back of his mouth that he can't really place, assumes maybe it's emotional bleed from the ghost in front of him.

Vergil.

Dante's brother.

"I—" V starts, stops, takes a small breath to try to beat down the feeling of unease that's threatening to strangle him. "Dante has always been private about... family."

Vergil snorts. "He hasn't changed, then."

The derision makes V feel defensive, protective of his brother, and he glares at Vergil and snaps, "Well, clearly he had a good reason for that."

Anger crosses Vergil's face, anger mangled into something raw and open by a twitch of regret, and his form wavers, going dull around the edges, face and chest dark and bloody with pale blue, shiny lines—

V blinks and he's back to normal, impassive once more, indifferent to V's words.

"I am here because of you. I don't entirely know why," Vergil says, dropping the topic of Dante altogether in favor of returning to the more pressing concern: namely, why he is still bound to the physical world. His voice is faint and fading, the transparency of his body becoming more noticeable until he is merely the suggestion of a person rather than a solid outline. V starts, reaching out on reflex. His fingers pass through cold nothing, a spark shooting up his arm to his shoulder, down his spine, sudden and bright and painful. 

"I still have questions," V says, and Vergil shrugs.

"They'll have to wait. It seems this is... still hard for me," Vergil says, and before V can pry for more information, he is alone in the apartment once more, static buzzing along his skin and in his head for a long, lingering minute before everything falls silent.

He stands rooted in place at the bookshelf for so long he loses track of time, eyes glazing over, staring unseeing at the book in his hands. A twin brother who is bound to _V,_ unable to move on because something about V has tethered him here. Frustration boils hot under his skin, setting his teeth on edge. The intention of this was to get answers, and instead he is even more confused than before, lost in a turmoil of questions that he fears _have_ no answer.

He could—he _should_ call Dante.

He doesn't.

Instead, he forces his legs to move, heavy and exhausted though they may be, and he crosses the room. He retrieves Dante's mother's spellbook, sitting once more on the kitchen chair in the middle of the living room, surveying his runework.

Setting about the task of dispelling the runes and ending the ritual is easy, clear, and sensible, with detailed steps that he can follow. Having something with set instructions to occupy his mind brings him some measure of calm, muting the whirlwind of emotion that beats at the back of his ribs and makes his chest feel tight. 

By the time he has finished resolving the spell, the clock on his phone reads three in the morning, and he collapses into bed, giving in to the exhaustion that eats at his ability to focus. He falls into a restless sleep.

* * *

There is a man standing beside him, a book in his hand and a smile on his face that makes V's teeth itch. He is looking around the room with an air of wonder, and although V cannot make out the details of his face, he can see the way he is dressed—a dark grey suit, buttoned high, freshly pressed. Absurd. They are navigating a long abandoned warehouse after a one mile trek through abandoned fields and across metal fences with "Do Not Enter" signs bolted to their doors. It is apparent that for all of his research on the topic, the man has no idea what he is doing in the field.

Where he lacks in real life experience, he makes up for in knowledge, this V must admit. The man bends down and looks at the runes etched into the floor, tracing their outline with his finger. 

"The runes are still in remarkable shape," he says, and his voice is low and filled with such obvious awe that V has the impulse to take a step back, creating distance between them. He does not. Instead, he stands still, looking at the runes nearest him while the man speaks. "As they are, they should still work without needing redrawn. How fortunate."

V hums in disinterest at the meaningless rambling. "Get to the point."

The man laughs—V cannot help the snarl it drags out of him, making his skin itch. Everything about this man disgusts him, and he reminds himself again that he is simply a tool, a means to an end. The knowledge he has access to will prove invaluable for learning more about their heritage. He will simply have to tolerate his presence while they investigate this supposed "secret to eternal life and power."

A pointless endeavor, as nothing of that scale ever comes without a caveat, but then, this man is shortsighted in his pursuits, easily swayed by the promise of power. 

"The ritual is complicated. It will take time," the man says, climbing to his feet. He faces V, book opened in his right hand, and gestures broadly to the second half of the circle. "With your assistance and your expertise, it will go faster."

"That _is_ why you brought me," V huffs, stepping around the man to skirt the edge of the complicated runes etched into the floor. They are carved deep, yet precise, intricate in their complexity. Clearly old and worn on the edges, but still well defined. He is not sure the exact nature of this ritual, but he knows that the intended outcome is access to knowledge which will lead them to the next step in this undoubtedly arduous, and ultimately pointless, process.

"Indeed, it is."

His world erupts into hot, vibrant pain as a knife is slid between his ribs.


	4. Chapter 4

V wakes with a shout, chest heaving and breathing ragged, adrenaline pumping through his veins and making his head spin. He rolls onto his side and hangs half off the bed, disoriented and confused. Fire burns its way up his spine, between his ribs and wrapping around his chest. He feels like he's actually been stabbed, each heavy beat of his heart making pain pulse hotly in his back and chest. In the confused delirium of half-wakefulness, he claws at his ribs, reaching around his back to feel where the knife pierced his skin, expecting to find blood, an open wound, some kind of mark left behind.

His skin is sweaty and clammy, but whole and unharmed. With a pained groan V forces himself back onto the bed, curling loosely on his side, willing his breathing to return to something resembling normal. Although his back is unharmed, he can't bring himself to lie like that, the pain too real, too sharp.

This isn’t the first time he’s had a dream like this—vivid and intense, so real that he cannot tell the difference between dream and reality for far too long after he wakes. He has been plagued by them for as long as he can remember, images of things he shouldn’t know, experiences he has never had, but can recall in minute, exacting detail. After years of ineffective medical treatments, his doctors had simply chalked them up to an overactive imagination and creative mind, although he’s always felt that was a pile of horseshit. 

Coincidences like that didn’t happen with his family, in this line of work, and he knows it, even if he doesn’t know what exactly those dreams mean.

He drags in another steady, slow breath as the world gradually begins to come back into focus, the panic that had been vibrating along his skin slowly dulling to a low roar in his head.

"Just a dream," V tells himself, sounding out the words to make them more real, an anchor to the waking world. "A nightmare."

"Quite the nightmare."

V nearly leaps out of his skin at the sound of Vergil's voice, eyes snapping open and fists balling into his blankets in alarm. His ghost is sitting on the couch, long legs crossed at the knee, elbow propped on his thigh and chin in hand. He is watching V curiously, one silvery eyebrow arched and his lips drawn into a tight line. Despite his somewhat… dry choice of words, there is a note of concern laced into his voice, a strangely emotional response coming from someone who is dead.

He hums noncommittally in response to the comment, choosing to ignore Vergil in favor of locating his cellphone, which he lost somewhere in the messy tangle of his blankets when he had collapsed into bed the night before. Drawing his blankets closer to his chin with one hand, V fishes for his cellphone with the other, finding it half under his pillow where he'd left it after his inability to fall asleep last night.

A quick glance at the clock shows that it is barely seven in the morning, meaning he has managed to get a relatively useless three hours of sleep. If he thought that manifesting the ghost would solve all of his problems, he had been sorely mistaken. Thankfully, his first class is not for another four hours today, and so he has time to drag himself back to the land of the living with caffeine and a hot shower. 

V wonders if his dream has anything to do with the sudden change in his companion, now that he thinks about it. While vivid dreams are nothing _new_ to him, the _content_ of that dream in particular was, and he cannot help but wonder if there is some connection between Vergil and the vision he has just bore witness to.

The night before, Vergil had said he was tied to this world because of V—not some physical item, or last regrets, or any of the other things that V has come to associate with hauntings. For whatever reason, something about V had made Vergil begin to manifest. 

Curiosity makes V speak next, the questions he did not get to ask surfacing to the forefront of his mind with full force in light of his nightmare. Perhaps it is because of the nature of the dream, or perhaps because he has always had an unnatural fixation with death, given his job, but the first question to come to mind is: "How did you die?"

Vergil balks, eyes widening just a fraction and lips pressing into a thin line. When he speaks, it's with his eyes focused squarely on the floor, rather than V's face.

"I was murdered," Vergil says, tone once more taking on that strange, unnaturally flat quality that V suspects is less his ghostly nature and more his inherent personality.

V remembers watching Vergil writhe on his living room floor, reliving his death. "Here?" 

"No. In a warehouse near Red Grave." Vergil pushes his free hand back through his hair, drumming his nails against his cheek with the other, both movements clearly a nervous gesture in response to the topic. 

"You were stabbed," V says, and Vergil nods.

"Yes," he responds, looking pensive for a moment before adding, "several times," as if he is reciting the weather, or reading a grocery list, and not detailing his murder.

There's a flicker, then, to Vergil's outline on the couch, a stutter like an old movie reel that has skipped a frame. The image that sits in his living room once he has re-materialized is bloody and broken—a gash through his left cheek, his shirt torn with slashes and stab wounds, the arm that holds his chin cut from wrist to elbow. Inky, dark blue veins crawl up Vergil's neck like ivy, curling around his chin, pulsing with a phantom heartbeat.

V gasps in alarm and Vergil turns to face him, eyes empty, before there's another flicker, another dropped moment where he is nonexistent entirely, before he is once more himself.

Vergil must see the fear on V's face, because he frowns. "My apologies. I... seem to lack control over that."

His voice reminds V to breathe. He pinches the bridge of his nose, then cradles his head in his hands, fighting back the headache that threatens to grow blinding behind his eyes. It is the confirmation that he needs to know that what he saw in his dream is related to Vergil in some way—was probably Vergil's death, or the moments leading up to it.

Stabbed in the back on top of some complicated spellwork that V hadn't been able to read or understand, at least not in the context of his dream. No wonder his situation is unique, as far as ghosts go. The circumstances of his death were far from typical.

"You died in that warehouse, on ancient runes. Some kind of... ritual to gain eternal life, or the secrets of. There was a man—"

Vergil cuts him off. "You dreamt it, didn't you."

It's not a question. V nods, looking at Vergil through his fingers.

"Why?" V asks, frustrated and tired, the dream fresh in his mind and setting his nerves on edge. His back throbs with phantom pain where the knife had pierced his flesh and his ribs ache, each breath a pained gasp. It didn't feel like his imagination running away with him. It felt _real_, during the dream and now, more like—

"A memory," V says, answering his own question. Vergil rises from the couch to walk through the room, closer to V's bedside. He stops at V's desk, near his bed, and looks down at the poetry collection V left there the night before in contemplation. When Vergil shows no signs of further movement or conversation, V adds, quietly, "_Your_ memory."

Vergil shakes his head. "I don’t think that’s quite right. It is my memory, but..."

“But _what_?” V snaps, tension spreading across his shoulders, up his neck, pooling behind his eyes. He feels on edge, frustrated and angry, at Vergil’s lack of information, the vague statements and answers he has been providing so far painfully insufficient to explain anything that has happened to him in the last two months. 

“When I was murdered,” Vergil says, turning away from the book of poetry to instead fix V with the full force of his attention, “the only thing that I remember thinking was that I refused to die. That I would fight against it, somehow overcome it in those last moments.” He laughs; it's broken and bitter. "A foolish thought."

He pauses then, voice drifting and eyes going hazy as he loses himself in thought, no doubt remembering the circumstances surrounding his death. While he waits for Vergil to continue, V pushes himself upright, situating his pillows at his back and leaning against the wall. It makes his back ache, sharp little pulses of pain, and he files it away as something to ask Vergil about later. He can't seem to remember if any of his past lucid dreams were this physical after the fact, psychosomatic though it may be.

“That seems a reasonable reaction to dying,” V says quietly, to which Vergil just shrugs, shaking his head as if it is nothing.

“Either way. Something… happened, afterward. I…” he trails off once more, fingertips dragging over the edge of V’s book, passing through it slightly. “I couldn’t accept that I had made a _mistake,_ that I’d failed. The next thing I remember is being in this apartment, as if I were picking up where I left off, and I think that is because of you.”

"You realize you've explained nothing," V says, because they are going nowhere, talking in circles, and his headaches and he's tired and he is, quite frankly, feeling a bit impatient with this entire thing. "Why do we share that memory?"

"I don't know."

V stares at the off white ceiling, considering his next words carefully. They need more information. All he has been able to gather from the situation so far is that Vergil is bound to V, that V has dreamed his death, and that Vergil is not your average spectre. It is frustratingly little to go on.

Part of him wants to rebel, to find some way to convince Vergil to simply move on and leave him be, yet a larger voice in the back of his mind whispers "what if?" What if this is the answer to the questions he has been avoiding for his entire life? The reason behind the dreams, nightmares, knowledge that he has but shouldn't.

There have been telltale signs that there is something different about him for years, signs that Dante has waved off as part of V's unique abilities and bloodline. As he grew older, the nightmares stopped, and the knowledge that would come to him randomly—how to find certain research, how to address a supernatural problem he had never experienced or read about before—had been written off as an uncanny intuition.

"So we are both equally clueless," V says, and Vergil turns to him with a huff of breath and a pointed glare, anger in his pose and the crease of his brow. Anger and uncertainty, and it is confirmation that Vergil truly has no idea what has happened, how V has come to possess part of Vergil's memories. 

"It would seem that way," Vergil says, lifting a transparent hand to study his fingers and fingernails, as if the creases of his palm hold the answers to their situation.

"Then what do we do next?" V asks as he gathers together his composure and swings his legs off of the side of the bed. His late night and restlessness from his dream have left him feeling even more tired than usual, his body aching. 

Vergil smirks, as if he finds something about what V said privately humorous. "The ritual." 

Ah, right. It is clear that the ritual that man was attempting to complete is involved in their unique situation, whatever that might actually be. Unearthing the details of what he was attempting to accomplish could provide not only the answers to Vergil's situation, but the questions that V has carried with him for his entire life.

Perhaps he is being too optimistic, yet that same sense of pride that had driven him to handle the situation of his haunting on his own burns hot in his chest at the thought of unearthing some greater mystery—about himself, about Vergil, answers to a murder that has so clearly impacted his family without his even knowing it.

"I had been doing some research of my own. If those notes still exist..." Vergil says, trailing off. V nods.

"Possibly. Dante is loathe to throw away anything he may consider potentially useful," V responds with a quiet laugh, and Vergil looks at him, expression pinched and dark. He supposes it must be weird to hear V talk about his twin brother. Vergil had said it was unsurprising that Dante had never talked about him, and he wonders why that might have been.

It is a topic for later. V is not the sort of man who pries into the secrets of others for no reason, and it is clear that the topic would be a sensitive one, for many reasons. 

With a groan he reaches for his cane, tucked between his bedside and nightstand, using it to push himself to his feet. Vergil watches him through narrowed, pale blue eyes. For some reason he expects a derisive remark, some comment about his obvious weakness, but instead Vergil just frowns, content to watch silently as V hobbles his way through the living room and to his bathroom. At the door, he turns to address Vergil.

"I have class. You are welcome to follow me, since I suspect you will anyway, invitation or no," V says, watching the way Vergil rolls his eyes, gaze drifting away from V's face to stare at a fixed point on his living room wall. "We'll plan to return home this weekend to search for answers."

For some reason, this makes Vergil laugh, a dark, quiet chuckle that disappears behind the bathroom door as V closes it.

* * *

It takes another two weeks before V is able to return to the shop at a time that is convenient—that is, at a time when Dante will be out on a job for part of the day, leaving him free reign to explore the shop at his leisure. Unfortunately, despite his more stable existence since V helped him manifest, Vergil appears unable to enter the heavily warded confines of the shop, leaving V to aimlessly dig through Dante's belongings with little direction. He does so slowly and carefully, so as not to leave any sign of his being there, and all the while guilt sits like a cold stone in his stomach at the violation of his brother's trust and privacy.

The guilt is not enough to override his curiosity, however, and so he pushes it down as he stares up at the trap door in the hallway ceiling that leads into the attic.

They have rarely used the attic for much outside of storing holiday decorations, and V has never been up there himself, the task of dragging the heavy boxes down to the ground floor normally left to his brothers. It is with no small measure of annoyance that he looks up at the door now, wondering if he is even going to be able to get to whatever boxes his brother might've stored up there. This may all be a pointless endeavor, but he supposes he has no other choice, and so he steels himself and, using his cane as leverage, grabs the string that serves as the handle to the attic door.

It takes nearly all of his strength to pull it open. Unfolding the rickety old wooden ladder and getting the latch undone proves to be a far greater challenge than he’d anticipated, and he is forced to sit on the bottom step and catch his breath for a long handful of minutes afterward, sweat running in cold lines down his back and making his hair cling to his neck. He is glad Vergil isn't here to see him make a complete fool of himself struggling to get into an attic in his own home. A small blessing to the other man’s absence.

Once he's had a moment to rest, V ascends the ladder. 

Dante’s attic is a dust-coated junk heap of boxes, bags, and miscellaneous objects that have probably not seen the light of day in close to twenty years. There is a single chain hanging above the entrance, and he reaches for it, the light clicking on with a pathetic flicker. The motion makes the single light bulb swing lazily above him, illuminating his surroundings in a strobing flash of light. V can barely make out the labels on each box, his older brother’s messy scrawl faded with time and the layer of filth that has settled over everything. 

He isn’t sure what he’s looking for, really, but V knows Dante. The man is two steps away from a hoarder, and if he has kept anything of Vergil’s, it will surely be here, tucked away out of sight. Grimacing at the grit and dirt that cling to everything around him and drift through the air in thick clouds, he sets about navigating between the boxes, looking for likely candidates.

He doesn't know how long ago Vergil died, exactly, but he can make a rough guess based on how old he thinks his brother is. If Vergil died when he was nineteen, then the boxes would be close to two decades old, likely shoved into a back corner and forgotten with time. It is with this in mind that he carefully, through liberal use of his cane to keep his balance and test for weak floorboards, works his way through the mess.

V is acutely aware of the violation of his brother’s privacy he is committing by digging through his belongings while he isn’t even home. He cannot help the cold twist of guilt that settles heavy in his stomach and makes him grimace to himself as he pushes aside boxes labeled with Dante’s mother’s name. Dante is a private man, even with Nero and V, and they have learned not to pry—some things were better left in the past, Dante had said, and until now, V had been more than happy to agree. Whatever he finds up here will certainly have significant meaning regarding a part of Dante’s life that no doubt comprises of his more painful memories.

After several long minutes of pushing boxes to the side and coughing his way through clouds of dust, he unearths what seems to be the most likely candidate: a sturdy wooden box draped in a cobweb-covered tan drop cloth. Even though he tries to pull the cloth off delicately, it still sends a whirlwind of dust into the air, coating his shirt and hair in a fine, light gray film.

“We clearly need to clean more often,” he mutters, sliding his hands along the edge of the lid to the box in search of a latch or a handle of some sort. He finds what he’s looking for around the back, which means he will need to turn the thing to be able to open it properly.

He stands there staring at it for a long, exhausted moment, regretting not bringing Nero with him for this endeavor, before he settles for wedging himself between the wall and the box. Turning it is simply out of the question for him, as sleep deprived and worn out as he already is, and so he manages to kneel between the dirty wall and the box with his back pressed against the wooden paneling. The cobwebs that cling to his hair and back make him grimace, but he pushes past the discomfort to instead inspect the wooden chest a little closer.

It’s unlabeled and unassuming in every way, clearly untouched for years. The metal clasps are rusted and stuck—he nearly breaks one with his cane in an effort to get it loose, and it creaks in protest when he opens the box.

V isn’t sure what he’s expecting to find inside of the box—photographs? Old notes and paperwork, all of the answers to the problems in his life?—but he certainly isn’t expecting…

clothing.

There is a split second where V considers abandoning this pursuit, closing the box and returning it to its corner in Dante’s dusty old attic and pretending like he has never been here, never seen this. But the familiar itch that has been pricking at the back of his mind has doubled in intensity and his curiosity burns just as bright as his regret, and so he takes a deep breath around the tightness in his throat and reaches into the box.

The clothing is old and worn and nothing special. He wonders why Dante had kept it, decides perhaps he doesn’t want to know the answer to that. He removes a pile of shirts and vests, sits them quietly off to the side as if he is unearthing an ancient tome full of priceless artifacts, careful not to disturb the neat piles that they have been placed in.

Beneath the clothing are piles and piles of books and related supplies. Textbooks with bent corners, notebooks with yellowed and faded pages, pens and bottles of ink. As he digs through the contents, his fingers brush the edge of a soft, leather-bound journal, and a spark like static shoots up his arm, goosebumps rising on his skin. He focuses on this, pulling it from beneath the miscellaneous objects that are scattered in the bottom of the box, and a voice in the back of his head says, _I remember this._

He remembers—long nights spent researching, documenting in minute detail what little information he has found, the secrets he has so far unearthed about their lineage—

V shakes his head, bites the inside of his cheek, and the image in his mind fades. He realizes suddenly that these intrusive thoughts are glimpses of another life, memories from someone else—Vergil, it seems. Lost in thought, he runs his fingers down the cover of the journal in silent reverence, and he knows without question that he will keep this one item, at least. Whatever research Vergil may have been doing is almost certainly here, and he feels a slight thrill at the prospect of learning more about his new companion and, possibly, their family.

Gently placing the journal into his lap, V leans back over the box, pushing the items to the side in search of anything else significant.

He finds it tucked into a corner, pressed flat to the side of the box: a piece of newspaper, dated seventeen years ago, turned yellow and fragile with time. It has been folded several times over, the creases soft and worn, and he carefully spreads it out onto this thighs, afraid that even the slightest touch will cause it to crumble. Once unfolded, it becomes apparent that there are two clippings, a second tucked within the creases of the first.

V’s eyes immediately land on Vergil’s face, black and white and small in the corner of the page, accompanied by what is very clearly an obituary listing. He reads quietly to himself as cold dread creeps up his spine: "Vergil Sparda, aged nineteen, survived by his twin brother Dante Sparda." In his picture, Vergil is wearing a white button-up and a dark vest, frowning slightly at the camera, hair swept back away from his face except for a few small wisps that fall against his forehead. It’s awkward in the way all school pictures are awkward, probably the only professional photograph that Dante had of his brother, and oh, god, what had that been like for Dante? The thought makes V feel anxious, makes him think a little too hard about losing his own brothers, and he sits the first newspaper clipping to the side, face down, to spare himself from dwelling on it further.

The second page is worse. He feels frozen, pinned in place the moment his eyes land on the image of an older male in the center of the page. He is bald and dressed in a pressed gray suit and V feels like he’s going to throw up, suddenly and abruptly, at the sight of his face. He drops the newspaper with a strained gasp—scrambles a second later to retrieve it where it’s become wedged against the edge of the box, for fear of the paper becoming torn and giving him away, should Dante ever look up here again. Holding it makes the hair on his arms and neck stand on end, and so he folds it and shoves it back into the bottom of the box while his breathing hitches and spirals its way toward panic.

Even though he hadn’t seen the man’s face in his dream, he knows him immediately as his--_Vergil’s_ murderer. For a long moment he sits frozen with his panic, breathing through his mouth, slow and steady, as he considers his next move. Learning more about Vergil’s murderer could help point him in the direction of where to find information about the ritual that the man had been attempting to complete, which, in turn, could provide answers about Vergil’s (and, by virtue of their connection, his) unique situation. With shaking hands he reaches back into the box, picking up the newspaper between his forefinger and thumb as if it will burn him if he touches too much of it.

Through the shakiness in his limbs he manages to spread the paper onto his lap, atop the journal, and he scans the fine print that details how he had been caught immediately following the murder of a local college student. V has to stop to remind himself to breathe several times while he reads, nausea making his vision swim and his mouth feel dry, but the effort proves to be worth it when he finds the name of the university where the man had been a professor.

The same school that he and Nero attend. 

That could mean something. If this man—Arkham, he’s learned is his name, but saying it makes his stomach lurch unpleasantly—taught at the university, then any research materials he may have acquired might still be part of the department in which he taught. Maybe even the library, if V is lucky.

Between the journal and what he has learned from the newspaper clippings, he has enough information to have a solid lead for where to go next. Carefully he returns the contents to the box as close to exactly as he found them as he can—books, then the newspaper clippings, and finally the neatly folded stacks of old clothing. With that done, he closes the lid to the box, returns the drop cloth to the top, and retreats from the attic, feeling a bit like a ghost himself.

That night, when Dante comes home from his job, V sits with him on the couch watching the terrible action movies his brother is so fond of, talking to him about anything that comes to mind. Dante jokingly asks him what the occasion is, once, and V just smiles, says he’s bored of studying, although in reality he feels uneasy, like they don’t have enough time.

Knowing what he knows now about Dante’s past, he supposes that feeling has some basis. So he engages in conversation with his brother as a form of silent apology, for invading his privacy and for not knowing about this dark, complicated part of his past, and when Dante retreats to bed for the night, he hugs him a little longer than usual, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a little while, because life happens so much. <3 As a reminder, if you want details on the "Major Character Death" and "Bittersweet Ending" tags, let me (Des) know, and I'll give you the rundown on how this will shake out. You can [find me on Twitter](https://twitter.com/desalwayscries).


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